Pelagic Cam · Live · 40 km off the Wild Coast
SardineRun
Two thousand sardines hold together as one silver body. When it turns, the light runs across its flanks like a struck match.
The Run
Every winter a cold current pushes billions of sardines north along the coast in a shoal seven kilometres long. It is the largest movement of biomass on the planet — and every predator in the ocean knows the date.
No leader, one mind
No fish is in charge. Each watches only the seven neighbours nearest to it, matching their speed and heading. From those three rules — keep close, don't collide, swim together — a body of thousands appears.
A wall that isn't there
When a predator drives in, the fish nearest it peel away and the shoal opens a hole around the threat, closing it again behind. The ball folds like cloth, never tearing, never scattering.
Light as a warning
A sardine's flank is a mirror. As it banks hard, the sun catches the silver and throws it — and because neighbours turn together, the flash travels across the shoal as a single moving wave.
The Ball
What you are steering above is not a video. It is two thousand simulated fish, each running the same short rulebook, folding around your cursor in real time. Push into the shoal and it will split; hold still and it will re-gather into a sphere and breathe.
Separation
Below a few body-lengths, fish shove apart. This is the pressure that keeps the ball dense but never solid — the give that lets it fold.
Alignment
Each fish nudges its heading toward the average of its neighbours. Turns propagate outward in a fraction of a second — the mechanism behind the flash wave.
Avoidance
Your cursor casts a shadow the fish read as a hunter. The closer it comes, the harder they flee — and the brighter their flanks flare as they wheel away.
Field Log
Notes from the Pelagic Cam rig, drifting with the shoal on a neutral tether.